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New thinking about what we're eating

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There are still efficient ways to produce healthy fresh organic food in a time where most food is being mass produced by corporations in less than hygienic ways. Country farmers and urban farmers explain. Full summary » | Add synopsis »

The new food justice documentary, Fresh, couldn't have a better
protagonist than Virginia farmer Joel Salatin. With his handsome,
sunburned face, ready laugh and muddy jeans, he looks like he stepped
right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. And he sounds like a poet.
"Oh, it doesn't get much better than this," he smiles, surveying his
rolling green acres. "When the early morning sun comes up, the dew
looks just like diamonds on the grass birds are singing very soothing
morning, I think." Salatin also practices the organic farming the film
promoteson a mid-sized farm he marries old-fashioned agricultural
wisdom with modern technology and makes a profit (he yields $3,000 per
acre for his "clean meat" compared to his factory beef-farming
neighbor's $250 an acre). This to right the wrongs of modern American
farming: three firms process 84 percent of all beef; 70 percent of the
country's grain goes to cattle feed; since 1950, the nutritional level
of produce has fallen by 40 percent; salmonella and other "feed lot"
bacteria regularly kill consumers; and the list goes on.

But Salatin isn't the only yummy thing about Fresh. Producer and
director Ana Sofia Joanes' storytelling is quietshe sits back and lets
her convincing, well-spoken stars shineand she fairly includes
non-organic farmers like an Arkansas couple financially trapped in an
industrial farming life. Joanes lets us feel sympathy for these
conventional farmers, too; no lurid slaughter scenes or evil violins in
the score here to terrify your kids.

Best yet, Joanes gives can-do characters like Salatin plenty of film
time to give their answers to the food industry crisis, and thereby
sends the message, heck yeah, we can fix this; quickly and easily.

Professor John Ikerd, professor emeritus of Agricultural Economics at
the University of Missouri, Columbia, tells us this problem isn't that
old. Our ancestors' small family farms morphed into the "animal cities"
we have today because "the (mid-twentieth century's) paradigm of
industrializationspecialization, standardization, economies of
scalehas worked so well we've applied it to everything," he says. "But
it doesn't work on everything, and it's time to shift to a different
paradigm, to a different world view." Michael Pollan, the award-winning
journalist and sought-after food-justice champion, explains why
"monocultures," acres and acres of the same species of corn or cattle
most American farmers raise, are dangerous things. "When you grow too
much of the same thing, you end up with too many pests of that thing."
Consequently farmers must use more pesticides and fertilizers in their
fields and antibiotics on their animals, and societies are vulnerable
to food shortages such as Ireland's potato famine, wherein a million
people starved to death and another million fled the country. But
farmers can simply grow a multitude of crops and let nature's food
chain keep them healthy, Pollan says.

Former professional basketball player and corporate manager Will Allen
does just that. In Milwaukee's Growing Power Food Community Center he
teaches urban people with palates long-tuned to McDonald's how to grow
a multitude of fresh, organic produce in small spaces. "Go vertical,"
he says, pointing to a hanging basket of greens, one of the 150 species
of vegetables grown in the backyard-sized greenhouse.

We also meet David Ball, who stocks local and organic meat, eggs,
cheese, honey and produce in his sleek Kansas City supermarkets. Andrew
Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, tries to
convert consumers and factory farmers alike with scientific data that
shows, unequivocally, he insists, that mid-size organic farming is the
best farming model for everybody. "Yes, it can feed the whole planet";
farm workers and animals alike are treated with decency; people,
animals and the environment will be healthier; and it's easy. Our first
move in supporting organic farming can be as simple as choosing an
organic tomato at the supermarket.

"Every decision we make at the supermarket is creating a different
future; for the land, the farmers, the diversity of our crops, the
health of our communities," Kimbrell says. "We're voting with our
dollar." For Joel Salatin, going organic is just the right thing to do.
"Part of our responsibility as stewards of the Earth". (As originally
posted in the AwareGuide for transformational media)

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